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Dad killed in fire, daughter fights for life

When the fire broke out, Ken Einboden gave his infant daughter to a friend and ran upstairs to save older daughter Britney.

A cat is removed from a house where a father has been killed in a one-alarm fire that left his 12-year-old daughter clinging to life Sunday afternoon. (CARLOS OSORIO / TORONTO STAR) | Order this photo

By Raveena AulakhStaff Reporter

Sun., March 7, 2010

The girls had a play-date.

At about 1 p.m. on Sunday afternoon, Britney Einboden called her friend and neighbour, Nidhi Bhanushali, and asked her if she wanted to play in the park. “I was having brunch and I told her in a couple of hours,” said Bhanushali.

At about 2:45 p.m., she saw fire trucks pull into Kemp Square, the quiet cul-de-sac near Jane St and Lawrence Ave., and smoke billowing out from her friend’s home. “It was so upsetting ... we were going to play,” said Bhanushali, 11. “I hope Britney comes home soon.”

Britney, 12, a Grade 7 student at Amesbury School, is clinging to her life at Sick Kids Hospital but her father, Ken Einboden, in his mid-30s, died trying to save Britney.

He was hailed a hero by acting platoon chief Greg Milani. “He could have saved himself but he went upstairs to find his daughter.”

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The fire started in the kitchen just before 3 p.m. and quickly spread. Ken, Britney and her baby sister, Kendra, were in the house at the time along with a friend of Ken’s, who was visiting. The girls’ mother, Jackie, was not home at the time.

According to neighbours, a man came running out of the house holding four-month-old Kendra.

“He screamed there was a fire,” said Eugenio Brazanti, who called 911. Brazanti, who lives two doors down, went to Einboden’s home and saw “smoke and nothing else. You couldn’t see inside the house.”

The friend told Brazanti that Einboden had handed Kendra to him and had run upstairs to get Britney from her room.

The father and daughter were removed from the smoke-filled home by EMS some time later. Einboden was pronounced dead on the scene and Britney was first taken to Humber River Regional Hospital and transferred to SickKids.

A cat was also taken out from the house. The feline wasn’t doing too well, said a firefighter.

The fire was completely put out by 5 p.m. but the children on the little cul-de-sac couldn’t stay away and gathered in small groups, crying and hugging each other. The Einbodens — father and daughter — were popular said neighbours.

“Ken would mow the grass on the island (at the cul-de-sac) so that the kids could play,” said Maya Bhanushali, Nidhi’s mother. “If your bike needed fixing, he would do it ... he was just very helpful and good with the kids.”

The family had moved into the nieghbourhood about seven years ago, nieghbours said.

The Einbodens also let the children play in their inflatable pool in the summer, said Bhanushali. Her daughter was inconsolable, especially because of the conflicting reports about her friend.

“I just saw Britney taking Kendra for a walk in her stroller,” said Miguel Tyndale, 13, a friend and neighbour. “She loved that baby ... was always talking about her.”

The white double-storey house with brown shingles on the roof was almost a write-off, said Milani.

The office of the fire marshal is investigating.

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